home because i'm
leaving from work
yeah
okay well uh i don't know if i mentioned to you last time we talked but uh i just recently retired from the Army
active duty twenty years and of course when you're active duty military you are required to not only to maintain a certain level of uh weight and physical fitness
um
but you're required to take a what we call a P T test physical uh physical training test uh twice a year
uh-huh
so we were constantly expected to exercise and be in shape and then we had specific standards we had to meet based on our age group
right
and if you didn't pass the test then they put you on what they called remedial P T and every morning you have to go to the company and
jog in formation in which really did not prepare you for the next physical fitness test but was more a form of punishment
right
right
well so now that you're out of that what what sort of regime do you keep up with
what do i do now well as the result of that i really got to enjoy uh long uh distance running
uh-huh
and so i i trained quite regularly and i i raced quite often i tried to do like a ten kilometer foot race uh once a month or so
oh wow
now that i am out i pretty much kept with it until i got a job in Virginia and i live in Maryland
uh-huh
and so by the time i i get up early and drive and hour to an hour and a half here
which is about fifty miles work all day fifty miles back on the Capitol Beltway and of course it's dark by the time i get home and
yeah
yeah
so i have to admit that i i have fallen off uh slightly
or maybe even considerably or maybe even completely
and uh so i am not doing much now which concerns me because i just had my forty ninth birthday
uh-huh
so i want to keep at it because i know that if you don't uh there's there's lots of problems that you can have
definitely
yeah and so uh i want to get back at it as soon as spring breaks and uh but what we have done is uh decreased considerably the amount of fat that we consume in our diet
right
uh-huh
and uh how about yourself
well i i generally play tennis two or three times a week
um uh-huh
and that's that's by enlarge about the only form of exercise i get but when i go out and play i generally play for two or three hours at a time
uh-huh
um so you have a good sustained work out
so
yeah so that that's that's quite strenuous for that long of a period
yeah
oh yeah yeah that's that is a long time to have at it but that's of course uh
uh there's a lot of sudden fast changes in direction and i don't know does that cause you any injuries or anything
um not not generally i i uh the few times i try and play basketball it seems like i always always sprain an ankle or twist a finger or something
no
uh-huh
right either an elbow in the eye
uh but tennis is not quite as extreme and i don't seem to have any uh injuries like that
right
uh-huh the nice thing i liked about foot racing was that uh for me it was pretty much non competitive
uh i didn't have to worry so much about being a part of a team or anything and so i could just compete against myself or the clock or the next guy ahead of me
right
and uh that fulfilled my urge to compete while at the same time keeping me fit
right
but i did uh i had the privilege of going to what the Army calls our master fitness trainer course which was uh a month long course at
Fort Ben Harrison Indiana and i learned a lot from that about uh the difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercise
uh-huh
that sort of thing and
so at least from that i i realize the importance of it
right
and uh
have you noticed any changes since you've started reducing the fat content of your diet
uh
not so much that but i have noticed a difference because i am not exercising as much anymore in the uh in my heart rate which slowly creeps up as you get less and less fit
uh-huh
right
and uh i haven't weighed myself in a good while but uh uh i just had a recently had a physical and they said that my uh triglycerides and the cholesterol and all that were in in pretty good shape
and my wife uh was keeping real close track of it because she uh wanted to see what effect it would have on her and it she showed a significant improvement
huh
through just simple things like you're going for low fat lunch meats for uh when we bring our lunches to work and uh
yeah
uh matter of fact i've very seldom uh use uh sugar or salt either uh it takes a little getting use to
yeah
but uh uh skim milk is what we drink now and that took a little getting use to
right
but uh we have well at least she has noticed a significant change in her in her cholesterol and uh and triglycerides which is which is good
yeah that's encouraging
yeah and uh so she's slowly working herself into a uh a moderate fitness program
